


We Hate Poe Dameron Club

by Aviss



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Romance, with note included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5985114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Have you been called buddy in that particularly aggravating tone? Have you been hugged like a brother? Have you been the focus of one of his blinding smiles? Have you felt like the centre or the universe when you talk to him?</i>
</p>
<p> <i>We all have, and we feel your pain.</i></p>
<p>Where Finn finds about a peculiar club in the resistance base and decides to join so he can show them the error of their ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Hate Poe Dameron Club

**Author's Note:**

> I read a post about how young pilots probably hated Poe for being always so perfect and handsome, and I thought, _"if Finn notices that, he will certainly set them straight!"_ and then kept going deeper and deeper into the fandom and thought nothing more of that. Until this. Because sometimes a silly thing wants to be written.

He found it on a corner of the notice board in the mess at the D'Qar base, and Finn would have never seen it had he not been curious about what the big black wall with pieces of paper in different colours was.

"The notice board? It's for things like when you are taking leave off planet and want to hitch a ride with someone heading for the same system, or when you need to find someone who knows how to fix leather, or want to get rid of a holo collection before getting married but don't want to throw them away because they will probably make someone's day," Snap said when Finn asked him about it. "You take a note, write what you want, stick it there and hope for the best."

They were almost alone in the hangar doing some maintenance in Snap's X-Wing, which had been damaged during the latest skirmish and meant he was grounded and unhappy about it. Finn was with him learning about the maintenance of X-wings among many other skills the resistance believed he needed. So far he had been sent for hand to hand combat, weapons training, diplomacy and etiquette, and flight lessons plus the ship maintenance ones.

General Organa called it training so he could be in more missions, Finn called it _'let's keeps Finn entertained while Rey and Poe are away before he snaps again_ '. Last time had not been fun, and he had felt like an ass for an entire week for raising his voice to the med-droid keeping him on his bed. Poe had laughed for half an hour when he heard about it. ' _That is not snapping, buddy. You should have seen Pava when she broke her leg_.'

"So anyone can write whatever they want and just leave it there? Trade things or services?" He passed a wrench to Snap, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. There was no equivalent to that type of barter system in the First Order. Any necessary item or training was either provided by the Order or considered superfluous, and thus, not allowed.

"Yeah, if you can find anything in that mess." Snap detached a part of an engine from the main body of the X-Wing, passed the wrench back to Finn and signaled him to join him at one of the tables to continue the repair. "That's how I learned to speak Huttese. And got myself a nice girlfriend out of it. You should have a look and see if there is something you like, I heard you can do with a few more trinkets for your quarters."

"I will," Finn replied, still not quite believing he could have things of his own now. And for free.

The board was as much of a disaster as Snap had said, and Finn spent at least half an hour sorting through it, picking up sticky notes in every colour of the spectrum and reading them. Some of them were useful, like the one in bright green offering holo lessons of binarie, he picked that one up hoping it might help him communicate with BB-8, other notes were sad, like the faded orange one announcing a memorial for a long destroyed planet, and a few of them were just plain weird, like the toxic pink that just said in huge lettering _HEY THERE, ANYBODY READS?_

Finn was about to head back to his room for the day, head throbbing after the last half an hour of reading notes in neon colours, when a phrase in one of the older stickers, the ones half-buried under the newer and brighter coloured ones, stopped him in his tracks.

_Have you been called_ buddy _in that particularly aggravating tone?_

In his mind he could hear Poe's voice saying ' _I'm so glad you are ok, buddy_ ' when he woke up after the Starkiller, and ' _been waiting for you, buddy_ ' when he was released from medical to find Poe just outside the door, a smile on his face and a bag with Finn's meagre belonging in his hand, and ' _missed me, buddy?_ ' when Finn greeted him after his return from the last mission. He remembered the way he felt, fluttery and warm, at that tone of voice, and unearthed the piece of paper to read the rest.

WE HATE POE DAMERON CLUB

The top of that page announced in block capitals, and Finn felt his brows climbing up his forehead. Carefully, looking around to see if anyone had seen him, he folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

He waited until he was in his room to read the entire thing, still feeling bad for having removed the piece of paper from the board. It was bigger than the usual stickers, and it was older than the ones on the top. Under the main title was a day and time, and the location for the meeting.

Frowning, Finn read the rest of the note.

_Have you been called_ buddy _in that particularly aggravating tone? Have you been hugged like a brother? Have you been the focus of one of his blinding smiles? Have you felt like the centre or the universe when you talk to him?_

_We all have, and we feel your pain._

_You are not alone. Come and share your experiences with us._

Finn read the note twice, and still didn't understand. He had been on the receiving end of all those gestures, and some more that were not listed there, since the moment he met Poe Dameron. It was just the way Poe was; he was a tactile person who always had a kind word and a smile for everyone, he listened to people as if they were privy of the secrets of the universe, laughed with his entire body, and hugged without restraint. He had done it to Finn, and to Rey when she came for a short visit, and to Jessika Pava when she had been two days late from her mission. There had also been some name calling and promises to never scare him like that again, and maybe a couple of tears, but Finn was under oath to say it had never happened.

Those were some of the qualities that made Poe who he was, and it puzzled and upset him that they were listed there as if they were bad.

He knew what he had to do; he was going to go to one of those meetings and find out how it was possible for anyone to hate Poe Dameron.

And then he was going to convince them of the error of their ways.

…

The meetings of the club were held in a disused room at the west end of the base, well past the mess hall and the gym. Finn had hoped for it to be a joke after all, a very elaborate prank like the ones Iolo liked to play on Pava and Snap that always made Poe's face light up with laughter. It wasn't; the room when he arrived was already half full, half a dozen chairs arranged in a circle in the middle, and all faces turned to him the moment he stepped through the door.

He recognised some of the people staring anxiously at him; young pilots who still didn't have enough experience to have been sent in the last mission, and who followed Poe around like eager puppies. There was also one of the medics who had cared for Finn while he was recovering from his injury, the one whose shifts usually coincided with Poe's visits. At some point Poe had been by his bed for most of a day, and she had checked in on them every hour; Finn had wondered when either of them rested.

She was the first one to react to his presence, her shocked expression morphing into one of sympathy. " _Oh Finn_ ," she said. Tanya, that was her name, walked up to him, took his hand, and guided him to a chair next to her. "We didn't think you'd end up here."

There was a round of nods, even from the people Finn didn't know.

"We should have known, he does it to _everyone_ ," a girl who couldn't be older than Rey said sadly. She was gorgeous, with lovely olive skin and almond shaped eyes, a long mass of curls surrounding her head. Finn had not seen her around the base, he would remember if he had.

"Poe?" Finn asked, and got a round of nods in response. "What does he do to everyone?"

He had thought about it for two whole days since he learned of the club existence and he still could not understand it. He knew what the paper said about the pet names, and the hugs, and the smiles, but he still didn't get how that made anyone hate Poe.

It certainly had not made Finn hate him, quite the contrary.

"You know, the smiling and the way he calls your name," one of the baby pilots said, something like outrage in his voice. Finn tried to remember his name, knew he had been told at some point. "He knows everyone's name!" Patrick. That was his name, Patrick.

It had been Poe the one to tell him. That made the other baby pilot Tynar.

"He doesn't get mad if you mess up during the practice runs," Tynar added in the same upset tone. "He grabbed my shoulder after the last one, smiled and said ' _you'll do better next time!'_ "

He had, Finn remembered; Tynar had done much better in the following run and Poe had been really proud of his baby pilot, he had even mentioned it to Finn at night, both of them tangled on the sheets of their too narrow bunk.

"You did better," he pointed out. "The following week you had a good run."

"That's not the point!" Tynar exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"What's the point then?" Finn asked, frowning.

"The point is," Tanya was the one to reply, "it is not fair to us!"

Finn looked around and saw everyone nodding at Tanya's words. "Because he is nice to you?"

"Because he flirts with everyone but he doesn't mean any of it!" Patrick said heatedly, and suddenly Finn understood.

It was so obvious he couldn't believe it had taken him that long to realize. He had been right from the beginning, there was no way anyone hated Poe after knowing him.

"Oh," he said, and then could not help himself any longer, he started laughing, some tension he had not known he was carrying dissolving with his mirth. He laughed long and hard, doubled over and holding his belly, his stomach hurting after a couple of minutes, his eyes shining with tears. He looked up once he could breathe again, and promptly collapsed on another gale of laughter at the shocked and indignant looks everyone in the room were shooting at him, his entire body shaking with it.

With an effort he got himself under control again.

"What's so funny?" Tynar demanded, and Finn just shook his head.

"All this," Finn said, taking the paper with the list of Poe's trespasses out of his pocket and making sure everyone could see it. "Is not Poe flirting with you. This is just Poe being Poe."

"And how would you know that? You wouldn't be here if you were not like us." It was Patrick the one to challenge him, and Finn shrugged.

"In love with him? _I am_." He said, plainly, he didn't add the ' _and so are you_ ' that was so clear to him now. If the way everyone shut up and stared wide eyed at him was any indication, it was not a response they were anticipating. "And unless you have seen him biting his bottom lip while he looks at you up and down with half-lidded eyes, unless he has grabbed your hand to take you somewhere, unless he has hugged you, not like a brother but pressing his face to your neck like a lover and holding so tight it almost hurts, and many other things I am not sharing with you, you have not seen Poe Dameron flirt." He continued, making sure everyone was looking at him. "When Poe flirts, you know he is flirting. And more important, _he knows he is flirting. And he means it_."

"How can you be so sure?" Tanya asked, but it was almost rhetoric.

"It took me some time to realize that this," he shook the list, "is his interpretation of friendship, and Poe really wants everyone to be his friend. The other ones, those he does just to me."

He wasn't going to share with them how long it had taken for that to sink in, how Poe had almost despaired at his cluelessness and then resorted to the least subtle of flirtations. How the rest of the pilots had had a bet on when Finn would clue in or whether Poe was just going to kiss him in the middle of the mess one day. Rey had won that poll by the simple method of asking Finn if he really didn't like Poe or he was just that thick. In the middle of the hangar. With everyone around. Finn had blushed and stammered. But not as much as Poe. And that had been it for Finn, he'd kissed him there in the middle of laughs and catcalls.

"On that note," he said when the silence in the room became too obvious and uncomfortable, all eyes still fixed on him. "I think I have a better name for this club."

…

Poe arrived from his missions late in the afternoon, his squad landing safely next to him after a couple of weeks of playing hide and seek with a First Order Star Destroyer, the hangar mostly deserted around them. The mission had been a success; they had managed to tail the ship halfway through the galaxy, a rotation of five pilots keeping always next to it and mapping its course planet to planet. This way they had identified three First Order outposts and a supply route that could be easily interrupted, and they had not lost any pilot. The General had been delighted during the debrief, and after a quick chat she had let him go to get some rest; Poe itched for a shower and some time with Finn after two weeks apart.

Finn wasn't in their rooms, though, and Poe headed to the mess to see if he could find him there. The mess hall in the D'Qar base was, like any other mess hall he had ever known in his military life, a compendium of voices and smells, the noise of dozens of conversations, plates being hit with cutlery and the clink of glass, the scrape of chairs on duracrete and many other things that happened on a room full of people. It was full of people, and he could not see Finn anywhere. Poe was about to head out to look for him when he heard his name followed by uproarious laughter from the area of the notice board.

There, in front of the board, were most of the pilots from his squad. They were all clustered around something or someone Poe couldn't see, but the way they were almost hysterical with laughter meant whatever they were looking at was worth investigating.

He remembered some of the posts on the board, one in particular, and suddenly had a bad feeling.

"I had to set them straight," Finn's voice declared from the middle of the group of pilots. "It is not right to say you hate someone like that."

' _Oh God no_ ,' Poe thought, already knowing what the commotion was about.

"Way to go, Finn," Pava said, voice strangled with laughter. "You tell them!"

It was all Pava's fault, she had been the one to create that stupid club notice a couple of years ago as a joke. It had been her way to tease Poe after one of the technicians on the base had misinterpreted his intentions, something that had happened more often than Poe was willing to admit. It had been a silly joke at the time, and they had all forgotten the notice was even there.

"I did," Finn admitted proudly in that guileless manner that was so endearing. "I explained it to them!"

"What did you explain and to whom?" Poe asked, and all heads turned in his direction. It looked as if everyone had been so focused on the board and on Finn they had not realised he was there.

Finn turned to look at him with the most beautiful smile on his face. "Poe! You've finished the debriefing!" In two steps the group of pilots had parted to allow them the space to move together and hug, Finn's body warm and reassuring against his.

"The General let me go early," he said once he'd had his fill of Finn and before he did something that was inappropriate in the middle of the mess. He put a hand around Finn waist and turned again to the board. "So what is it you explained?"

He didn't need a response, though, it was clear as day in the middle of the board. For an instant everything faded, only Finn's body next to him and the note on the board present. He was aware of the way his mouth had fallen open, his hand clenched around Finn's waist, a hot flush creeping over his neck and cheeks. He had never read the original note, but he had no trouble identifying Jess's loopy scrawl and sense of humour. He even recognized the room assigned for the meetings; it was where blue and red squads had their regular game night on Saturday if they were not flying missions, one of the semi-abandoned rooms too far from the centre of the compound to use for diplomatic or strategic meetings, but perfect for rowdy pilots to play cards and have a couple drinks.

Those details were nothing compared with the newer additions, in Finn's blocky writing and eye catching red, calling every single eye to them. He stared and stared, the noise from the mess filtered back into consciousness, and with it Finn's voice sounding, for the first time, insecure and a bit anxious.

"I shouldn't have done it?"

They had not been together long enough to be at the love declaration stage, much less the very public love declarations. Poe didn't mind. He didn't mind at all. He turned to look at Finn, taking in the slight flush on his cheeks and the nervous press of his mouth, and did the thing he had been thinking about since the instant his X-Wing had landed in the base. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Finn's, a soft touch at first until Finn stepped closer to him, arms surrounding his back and holding him closer. He opened his mouth, melting into the kiss and holding on for dear life. He had missed Finn, missed his solid presence in his arms and the warmth of his body, the way he kissed with his entire body, taking possession of Poe's mouth as if he had been born to do this, his taste and feel intoxicating. He got lost in the kiss, almost forgetting they were very much in public, his hands gripping Finn's hips hard, until Snap shouted "Get at room!"

He pulled back reluctantly, and smiled at the way any hint of insecurity had left Finn's face. He looked rumpled and aroused, lips slick and swollen, and breath coming out fast.

Poe smiled and leaned to whisper in his ear.

"I think it's perfect."

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me in [tumblr](http://aviss.tumblr.com/)


End file.
